h 3545 

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1919 

Copy I 



.-IE FUNSTON 
1.0UBLE TRACK 



WILLARD WATTLES 




THE FUNSTON DOUBLE TRACK 
AND OTHER VERSES 



h 

PRIVATE WILLARD WATTLES 

Tenth Sanitary Train. Tenth Division, 
CAMP FUNSTON, KANSAS 

MEMBER OF THE VIGILANTES 



MANHATTAN, KANSAS 

N. A. CRAWFORD 

1919 



'\4 



\ 



V 



Copyright. 1919, 
by N. A. Crawford 



©CL/,51080S 



EB -' 1919 



TO MAJOR-GENERAL LEONARD WOOD: 

A SOLDIER IN DISCIPLINE BUT A 
FATHER IN AFFECTION, HE HAS 
BUILT THE ARMY OF DEMOCRACY 



FOREWORD 

The proceeds of the sale of this booklet will 
be devoted to the establishment of a Kansas 
Poetry Prize, competition for which will be open 
to natives of Kansas. 

The verses in this booklet appeared from time 
to time, during and after the war, in the Kansas 
City Star, the Springfield Republican^ the Bos- 
ton Evening Transcript^ the Philadelphia Public 
Ledger, and Trench and Gamp-, also in Fifes and 
Drums, the contributors to which were The Vigi- 
lantes and which was published by George H. 
Doran Company. Grateful acknowledgement is 
made to the original publishers for permission 
to reprint the material. 

Special appreciation is extended to the Kansas 
City Star and to Mr. L. P. Wilford. artist on its 
staff, for the use of the drawing which appears 
on the cover. 



/THE FUNSTON DOUBLE TRACK 

{On the way to Funston, when troop trains pass, 
the men going in different directions reach out- 
and slap hands) 

The trains that move to Funston 

Run on a double track, 
And fast as new recruits go down 

The old recruits come back; 
And some are clad in khaki 

And some are queerly dressed 
In all the odd disguises 

Of gaudy shirt and vest. 

The trains that come from Funston 

Go rushing to the east 
Across the greening corn land 

Where harvesting has ceased; 
And every train that passes 

Is thunderous with noise, 
Each window overflowing 

With ruddy, laughing boys. 

The trains that go to Funston 

Move steadily to the west 
Freighted with equal cheering, 

With equal honor blessed ; 
And as the trains are passing 

The men reach out their hands 
And at the touch electric 

Each rookie understands. 



1 

"You'll like it, boy, you'll like it," j 

The lads in khaki shout ; 
**Hey, bo, where are you going?" J 

"Don't know; we'll soon find out." ' 

A touch, a laugh, a passing, ! 

"I'll meet you coming back," ; 

Where trains go down to Funston ] 

Upon the double track. 



UPON THE HILLS OF FUNSTON 

Upon the hills of Funston the yellow prim- 
rose glows, 

And tangled in the grasses is the shy, four- 
petaled rose, 

With its golden dust of pollen and the wild 
bees hurrying 

Through the green aisles of young summer 
like small, blazing suns a-wing. 

Upon the hills of Funston the grass grows 
long and deep. 

And there are pleasant places where a man 
might fall asleep; 

Where overhead the white clouds go careen- 
ing down the sky. 

And it never seems at Funston that a man 
could ever die. 

Upon the hills of Funston there are patient 
ranks of brown. 

Where lads with guns and bayonets go 
marching up and down; 

There's a splendor rests upon them from the 
tender, brooding skies. 

And the ringing sword of freedom is the an- 
swer of their eyes. 

Upon the hills of Funston the meadowlarks 

swing low 

But there are hills in Flanders where the lads 

in brown will go, 



And many pleasant places in the sunny fields 
of France 

Where a man may rest him quiet and be mer- 
ry of the chance. 

Upon the hills of Funston, in the sun and 
wind and rain, 

The sowing of our parents in their darkest 
hours of pain 

Bears its golden, laughing harvest out of 
which the perfect Bread 

Shall be broken for the nations that are call- 
ing to be fed. 

How beautiful, how beautiful the brown and 

dusty feet 
Of those who bring glad tidings that shall 

make the whole world sweet; 
And there upon the Funston hills the doom 

of Hate is sealed, 
Where the patient lines of khaki tramp across 

a rain-drenched field. 



("The Funston Double Track" and Upon tba Hills of Funston" have been 
set to music by Elizabeth Uhls Liadsey, Overland Park, Kansas.) 



10 



/THE DEPOT BRIGADE 

I went to join the army, I thought 'twas 

mighty fine 
To be a gory hero in the very front line, 
To mess around with hand grenades — 'twould 

be amazing fun 
To jab a hungry bayonet into a howling Hun, 
To get my right arm shot in two and lose my 

eagle eye 
And hang my spinal column on the barbed- 
wire fence to dry. 
King George would come to greet me and 

take me back to Blighty 
And pin a colored ribbon on my pretty little 

nighty ; 
Then when the war was over, with all my 

deeds bewilderin' 
rd scare into coniption fits my children's 

children's children. 

And so I came to Funston, — ^the weather 

went to zero. 
And underneath the shower-bath I hardly 

looked a hero. 
They stuck me in the kitchen, I mounted 

guard all night. 
And I was such an Ichabod my clothes they 

looked a fright. 
I scrubbed the hall a dozen times and fin- 
ished up the floor ; 
The corporal, he came along and said, "Now 

scrub some more." 
They bawled me out at reveille, they nagged 

me at retreat, 



11 



They made remarks I really think I'd better 
not repeat; 

But worst of all their insults — alas, the sorry 
trade — 

They turned at last and stuck me in the De- 
pot Brigade. 

Now all the friends I ever had are fighting 
Huns in France, 

TheyVe raised Old Glory to the winds in 
Pershing's great advance. 

They've died in German dug-outs, they've 
given lives to save 

Some other wounded fellow from a muddy 
Flanders grave. 

They've swept like eagles through the sky 
and won the cross of war. 

Their youth is like a flaming sword, their fate 
a falling star. 

But I am here in Funston — God knows how 
long I'll stay, 

I search the printed list of dead with grow- 
ing dread each day. 

For when the war is over and all of history 
made. 

They'll say, "He stayed in Funston in the De- 
pot Brigade." 

(Shortly after the publication of the foregoing stanzas the author secured 
a transfer to the Tenth Division.) 



12 



THE DOUGHBOY'S LADIES' MONTHLIES 

Says the Sergeant to the Corporal, "Let's see 

you make a noise, 
For someone's sent some magazines to our 

doughboys; 
Some ladies' aid society has gone and done 

us kind, 
So let's unpack our stocking, and see what 

we kin find." 

The Corporal to the Sergeant, he up an' sez, 

sez he, 
"There isn't many high-brows in this here 

compan-ee ; 
But what we'll do with Harp's Bazaar is more 

than I can tell 
Though they say there's lots of readin' in the 

Ladies Home Journell. 

The Sergeant stopped to masticate a chew of 

Navy Plug, 
"We'll use ih.2iX House and Garden when we 

buy the parlor rug ; 
An' when that Denver rookie starts to wash 

his overalls 
He kin get some nice suggestions by readin' 

in McCairsr 

The Corporal made two shining braids from 

out his auburn hair, 
"I think I'll rest a bit," sez he, "an' take up 

Vanity Fair; 

13 



I find my figure so obese, I really think I'll 

try 
To cut my Butterick jacket-suit from Fashions 

on the sly/' 

The Sergeant shook two loaded dice, and 

drew another card, 
"I learned this game of checkers from the 

Youth's Companion, pard, 
An' when I start to throw a bridge across a 

boilin' canyon 
I'll read up that new tatting stitch in the 

Woman's Home Companion. " 

The Corporal raised his pewter lid and blew 
the foam away*, 

"I get so tender-hearted when I'm readin' 
Vogue all day, 

I sometimes think there ain't no use of high 
ideals an' vision 

Unless my ruffled bathin' suit is genuine Par- 
isian." 

The Sergeant to the Corporal, he up an' sez, 

sez he, 
"I think that's all the magazines for this here 

compan-ee, 
An' when the boys has read 'em through, I'm 

sure they'll all be pleadin' 
To have some more good fashion-plates for 

desultory readin'." 

♦It is of course to be understood that the liquid in the container 
is Bevo. 



14 



^ARMY SHOES 

For a Sammy in the army, life is just one 

round of pleasure ; 
From reveille till taps at night somebody's 

got his measure : 
He hits the floor at a quarter of six and grabs 

his clothes and scoots 
Where sleepy, cussy sergeant chaps are lin- 
ing up recruits. 
They bawl him out the whole day long till 

he'd like to kill the brutes 
And every time he turns around some dog- 

goned bugle toots, — 
Oh, there's always something popping in 

the army. 

But it isn't kitchen duty that gets the new 

recruity, 
It isn't peeling onions or cleaning cuspidors. 
It isn't lack of booty or the shave-tail so sa- 

lutey. 
That makes him pray in his honest way to 

soon be done with wars. 
It isn't being far from home or being far from 

booze. 
It isn't things he doesn't have, or things he'd 

like to lose. 

It's the shoes! 

They take his clothes away from him in the 

receiving station 
And send him shivering down the line like 

Adam at Creation. 



15 



They poke him in the short ribs and they 
grab him by the tongue, 

They say he's got tobacco-heart and can't in- 
flate his lung, 

And other personal remarks that seldom have 
been sung 

By any poet I have known without his being 
hung ; 
Oh, there's always something popping in 
the army. 

They give him soap and water because they 
think they'd orter. 

They count his spinal column and they mark 
him up with chalk 

Till he would give a quarter just to be a 
blooming martyr 

And to punch the first young corporal who 
gives him any talk. 

It isn't beans and coffee and those peculiar 
stews 

In which you meet your long lost child or any- 
thing you choose, 
It's the shoes ! 

I know at last the reason men are "buried in 
their boots," 

For shoes make splendid coffins for not too 
plump recruits ; 

Or over there in Flanders they will make a 
cozy row 

Of cast-off shoes with heels run down or rup- 
tures in the toe, 

•And roof them up all shrapnel-proof and cut 
a door below 



16 



So every Belgian family has a brand-new 
bungalow, — 
Oh, there's always something popping in 
the army. 

It isn't German bullets, or even doctored news 
That gives the lonesome Sammy a fit of army 
blues, 

It's the shoes ! 

I stood retreat the other night all dressed up 

in my best. 
The Captain, he looked down the line and 

hollered, "Pee-rade rest." 
I bent my left leg at the knee and made my 

stummick small, 
My right foot made a backward march six 

inches to the wall, 
I grabbed my left thumb, stared in front, and 

heard the sergeant bawl: 
"You lop-eared loon, look down and see, your 

shoe ain't moved at all !" 
Oh, there's always something popping in 

the army. 

If they'd strung me to a girder, I couldn't 
even stirred her, 

I moved my foot around inside a dozen dif- 
ferent ways. 

But they said the crime was murder, that I 
should have pulled it furder, 

And sent me up to Leavenworth and give me 
thirty days. 

It isn't fighting Germans, or the poison gas 
they use — 

Some day we'll paint old Kaiser Bill a hun- 
dred different hues — 
It's the shoes! 

17 



/ 



LITERACHOOR AT CAMP FUNSTON 



Oh, all the boys at Funston are a literary lot; 
When it comes to writing letters they are 

Johnny-on-the-spot. 
They're not so strong for Ruskin, Aeschylus, 

or Charlie Lamb, 
But they're strong as army mustard for the 

lays of Uncle Sam, 
They come into the "Y" at night in an ab- 
sent-minded way 
And grab a pen and quart of ink and have 

a lot to say — 
For though I never read the books they write 

in such a hurry 
There's someone seems to like them, and so 

it's "We should worry!" 



18 



^ A BOX FROM HOME AT FUNSTON 

When someone gets a box from home in our 
squad-room 

Maginnis drops the mopping-stick, and John- 
son drops the broom, 

MacPherson's off in a Highland fling, and 
Terence begins to caper, 

While Sandy yanks at the cotton string and 
scatters the wrapping paper. 

Oh, here's a pound of chocolate fudge that'll 

turn your whiskers green. 
And a chicken fried in its juicy hide as brown 

as a navy bean ; 
There's angel-food so gol-darned good that 

you reach for another cut, 
A box of sinkers sweet with lard and rich as 

a hazel-nut. 

Here's a thick divinity-brick, so whet your 

bowie-knife. 
And a cocoanut cake that 'ud almost make a 

bridegroom leave his wife. 
Like hungry crows we perch in rows on the 

foot of O'Reilly's bunk, 
Full to the brim, but waitin' for Slim to carve 

us another hunk. 

"Oh, it's hurry up, you lazy pup, or you'll 

never get a smell; 
The Kaiser's strong, but Sherman's wrong, 

when he says that war is — Well, 
Maginnis, drop your mopping-stick, and 

Johnson drop your broom. 
For someone's got a box from home in our 

squad-room. 

19 



/VISITORS' DAY AT FUNSTON j 

When the folks come down to Funston i 

With Mother in her best i 

And Father at the steerin '-wheel \ 

A-sticking out his chest, < 
With sister Mame excited 

At all the things she sees, I 

And Aunt Maria sayin* i 

"Why! Ain't there any trees?" ; 

It makes a feller cheerful [ 

In a kind of home-like way | 

When the folks come down to Funston j 

On a Visitin' Day. | 

You meet them at the Hostess House 

Beside the Gold Belt Road, i 

And all the women holler, ^ 

"Good gracious, ain't you growed !" 
And sister Mame is watchin' 

To see if you can spare 
One of them shiny buttons. 

An' pattin' down her hair, 

An' Ma brings out her knittin' j 

An' says, "We've come to stay." ] 

Oh, it's mighty fine at Funston ] 

On a Visitin' Day. 

When the folks come down to Funston j 

There's lots of things to see : | 

The barracks and the mess-room ; 

And the infirmary, , 

The smoke-stacks and the laundry, 

The guns all streaked and pied, ] 

Our new alfalfa patches J 

20 



(We're farmin' on the side), 
The Zone an' Army City 

Where Father has to pay 
Till Fm glad he's got the wallet 

On a Visitin' Day. 

And then behind the Hostess House 

We climb up on the hill 
An' see the golden valley 

A-lyin' soft an' still. 
With all the panerammer 

Of woods an' hills an' skies, 
It sort of hits you funny 

An' gets into your eyes ; 
For you know across the waters 

Where it's all torn mud and clay, 
There's lots of people missin' 

On a Visitin' Day. 



21 



. BATTALIONS OF THE SOUL i 

O ye at home in comfort 

Who laugh and love at ease, 

Remember those who perish ] 

To guard your luxuries, S 

Who on the far-flung ocean i 

Or through the smoke-dimmed trees ; 

Pay with their bodies' anguish ^ 

For the soul's lone victories. ] 

You have been quick to strengthen j 

The sinewed strands of steel, \ 
And squat and spitting monsters 

Move forward wheel by wheel ; 

Across the whitened waters j 

Cuts swift the avenging keel, , 

And through the fields of heaven ] 

The awful dews congeal. j 

But not alone with cannon i 

Are God's stern battles won, i 
And not with driven thunder 

We smite the shameful Hun : i 
But with our clean young splendor 

And pulses swift that run 

We raze the walls of Sodom I 

And hell's battalions stun. . j 

What will you give to guard us — | 

Not in red holocaust \ 

When the torn fields are streaming j 

And storms of shell are tossed — 5 

But in the lonelier trenches | 

Where faiths of home are lost i 

And only a day of living ) 

Seems worth the bitter cost? 

22 



A song of Annie Laurie 

In a Y. M. hut at night, 
A stamp and sheet of paper, 

A book, a pipe alight, 
A reel of Charlie Chaplin, 

Two boxers squared to fight — 
These are the things you pay for 

That keep our bodies white. 

What are your fields and furrows 

Your bursting barns of grain, 
The haze of yellow harvests 

Across the purple plain. 
If, when the war is over 

And your sons come home again, 
The soul's last fort is taken 

And faith's defenders slain? 

(Written for the United War Work Campaign of Kansas.) 



23 



/ ENLISTED 1 

i 

Have you heard the shiver of bodies hurled | 

Chest on crashing chest, \ 

When thigh-bones snap like pistol shots | 

And men meet breast to breast? \ 

Have you seen the feet of a maddened horse \ 

Red-wet with the wine of war j 

And wondered in crushing a comrade's face | 

What you had killed him for? \ 

i 

Ever the sweep of the wave of men ; 

On the reef of jagged death, I 

And frozen faces like cockle-shells | 

Where the breaker billoweth, \ 

The outflung arms of a down-lipped boy i 

With his throat shot through — j 

Perhaps his shoulder brushed your own | 

Or he slept last night by you. I 



My fathers followed Washington | 

Into the forests dim, 

The blood of Warren at Bunker Hill ] 

In my veins runs from him, I 

When Perry crossed from ship to ship ; 

They bent their arms to row, ; 

They faced the Mexicans' livid hail j 

In the shattered Alamo. j 

The Susquehanna knew their tents, J 

They perished at Bull Run, j 

Shenandoah saw our dead ^ 

Staring at the sun ; ; 

24 1 



We marched with Sherman to the sea, 

Starved at Andersonville, 
And one of us died by the barbed-wire fence 

Under San Juan Hill. 

You cannot change the written scroll 

Nor alter the charted plan, 
Ever must moaning women quail 

And man make war on man ; 
Out of strength must sweetness come — 

Out of sacrifice 
We melt the metal and forge the key 

To enter Paradise. 

I thank my fathers for what they paid 

On the altar of the years, 
I thank the women who gave me birth 

In agony and tears ; 
I could not wish that life should ask 

One payment less from me. 
And the bugle-call of the arming hosts 

Sets their old passion free. 



25 



OH, BOY! OH, JOY 

{Based on an incident of the Tuscania sinking) 

"Oh, boy! oh, joy! where do we go from here/* 
So the band was playing while the ship swam 
clear. 

The trip was nearly over, Erin was ahead, 
Soon we would be tramping down the Flan- 
ders lanes instead. 

Smoke was fogging upward, the long low 

room was blue, 
While many khaki tales went round, and none 

of them was true. 

Then sudden came the crash of doom, and all 
the lights went out, 

"Steady, boys, they've hit us," came our cap- 
tain's ready shout. 

Groping quickly upward, each one found his 

waiting boat, 
But five of them were shattered so we knew 

they couldn't float. 

There was calling through the shadows 
where one sought to find his chum 

When a rocket split the darkness that was 
throbbing like a drum. 

Then the lifeboats struck the water loaded 

to the very brim 
And there v/asn't time to bother with the man 

who couldn't swim. 



26 



Then there came a cheery whistle from a lad 

whose ruddy chin 
Hardly cleared the broken wreckage, "Hi 

there, fellows, take me in." 

When we said we couldn't take him, that the 

boat was loaded down 
And another man would swamp us so the 

rest of us would drown, 

Quick he turned and gave up trying, but his 

laughter rippled clear, 
''Oh, boy! oh, joy where do we go from 

here. " 



27 



/TO THE GERMAN EMPEROR AND 
ALL HIS CLAN 



Now that avenging armies 

Hurl back your shattered lines, 
You lift your cheating proffers 

And tune your subtle whines; 
The flail is raised to smite you 

And now before it fall 
You would avert the whip-lash 

In fate's stern judgment-hall. 



Across the fields of Belgium 

You leave the spoor of hell, 
We trace the Beast retreating 

And mark his actions well; 
You launch a rain of shrapnel 

At wounded men in boats. 
The while you cry us "Comrade 

With blackly perjured throats 



»> 



We have been stern and patient. 

We have withheld our hand 
In that firm-lipped appraisement 

You do not understand ; 
Now you shall have our answer 

In storm of belching shell : 
"No covenant with devils, 

No compromise with Hell !" 



28 



J. IN A Y. M. HUT AT FUNSTON 

I have heard America singing 
In deep, full-throated choruses, 
I have seen the youth of my country 
Lift up the banner of their fathers 
And with the sword of laughter achieve a 
silent honor. 

There are those who arose in the dawning 
and kissed and parted, 

Who never again shall hear the cricket re- 
plying 

Out of the dim-lit midnight ; 

There are those who have seen 

The lilt of a head and the backward glance 
of assurance turned in the doorway, with 
the old, old gesture of boyhood ; 

There are those who shall plow all day in a 
motionless furrow. 

But I have heard the gathering of natural, 
melodious laughter; 

And I know that no nation, no matter how 
haughty. 

Can stand in the hour when the young, swift 
men of my country 

Come to the final ambush laughing and sing- 
ing. 

(Written in May, 1918.) 



29 



AUTUMN HILLS OF FUNSTON 

{To the memory of Lieutenant Robert C. Westman 
of Massachusetts, killed in action August 10, 1918) 

Across the hills of Funston the autumn rains 
have swept, 

And silent are the grasses where the tiny 
creatures crept; 

Brown and red and yellow are the hollov/s 
of the hills, 

And violet the twilight where the waning sun- 
set fills 

All the little vales and gullies where the 
prairie roses glowed 

In early June in Funston beside the trampled 
road. 

For yesterday the word came from the sister 

of a friend. 
"Bob died in France in August," were the 

simple words she penned 
Yet they turned my heart to ashes and they 

drew across the sky 
A veil that clouds the sunshine till the day I 

come to die ; 
I could have spared a hundred from the store 

of friends I keep 
If only death had lifted the sickle from this 

sleep. 

O autumn hills of Funston where I wait a 
prisoner 

With hands and feet so fettered that I can- 
not even stir, 



30 



The glory of the summer and the promise of 
the spring 

Are smit with frost of autumn and with black- 
ened withering; 

There's a new made grave in Alsace where 
the sudden poppies start 

But it's autumn here in Funston and it's win- 
ter in my heart. 



31 



LADS OF THE KHAKI RETURNING 

You tell me the war is soon over, 

That Hunland has crumbled down 
And peace in triumphant advances 

Has won through each flaming town. 
I greet you, rejoicer, with gladness, 

Yet mine is the harder fate, 
For peace with her banners and bugles 

Has come to me too late. 

In a grave on the Lorraine sector 

Where I cannot know even the place, 
Lies quiet a torn young body, 

My lad of the shining face. 
He rose in the hour of our anguish 

With his eyes on the ultimate star; 
Now never again may I greet him. 

He has wandered so far. 

O honor and beauty and splendor 

Of manhood as clean as the wind, 
O hands that were hearty to welcome, 

O Roland whose trumpet was thinned, 
Who blew in the beleaguered passes 

The horn of our desperate chance. 
Whose faith and whose body were white as 

The lilies of France 1 

The lads of the khaki returning 

March down the long lanes of the flag, 
And some of their coat-sleeves are empty. 

And some are on crutches that drag; 
They are back to the home of their fathers, 

They have stormed the battalions of Hate, 
Yet one face of gay laughter is absent — 

Peace, you are late, you are late! 

32 



y^THE WAR AT HOME 

God of our fathers, with bowed hearts we 

come 
In this glad hour when the unscathed rejoices ; 
Strike Thou each little boaster awed and 

dumb 
Before the flame of Pentecostal voices. 
Our youth has stormed the hosts of hell and 

won, 
Yet we who pay the price of their oblation 
Know that the greater war is just begun 
Which makes humanity the nation's Nation. 



33 



^ 



PRAYER IN TIME OF VICTORY 



God of our fathers, Who hast called once 

more 
Our far-flung legions to the parent shore 
Where England guards the gateway of the 

seas 
And France upholds man's old equalities, 
Where Belgium bleeds beneath the steady 

stars 
And Serbia flames through freedom's ava- 
tars, 
Where grace of Florence and the hills of 

Rome 
Still lift the cross to fling helFs cohorts home, 
Grant Thou, our God Who nerved Cromwell 

with steel, 
In Maenad forms cried loud A has Bastile! 
Who breathed through Garibaldi and Rous- 
seau 
And lifted Lincoln to prove a nation's woe, — 
That we not lightly overthrow the suns 
Too young, too proud, for all our belching 
guns. 

Remember Thou the agony of Thy cross 
Which turned to triumph all the bitter loss. 
America runs swift upon appointed feet . . . 
Stay Thou our steps lest they become too 

fleet. 
Break Thou our backs and crown our brows 

with pain, 
Lest we become as those that we have slain ; 
And then in faith of love's great victories 
Broken with wonder fling us to our knees. 



34 



OTHER BOOKS BY WILLARD WATTLES 

Songs from the Hill. University Book Store, 

Lawrence, Kansas, 
Sunflowers, A Book of Kansas Poems. A. C. 

McClurg & Company, Chicago. 
Lanterns in Gethsemane. E. P. Button & Com- 
pany, 681 Fifth Avenue, New York City. 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



■I 



e 014 131 831 7 



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